~300 Years Later~
The cursed child's experiment involved feeding him poisoned blood from the royal lineage of banished phoenixes, outcasts doomed to rot in the dungeon. The process was gruesome. Torture, mutilation, and draining his life force, only to revive him with another poisonous transfusion.
Ares, now resembling an eighteen-year-old, hung limp against the wall, chains binding his frail, blood-soaked form. His long dark hair veiled his face, and his body bore the scars of unspeakable agony. Fingers, toes, and hands – all gone. His stomach was a raw, open wound, labored breathing the only sign of life.
Edward entered, a golden goblet of wine grasped in his hand, his presence announcing itself like a specter of death. "Ares."
Ares flinched, his eyes emerging from behind his tangled locks, fixing onto the king's approach.
